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Bruce Curley

poetslife@gmail.com

poetslife.blogspot.com

retained

Poetry pulled from the Four Poets Series submission.

a dream of love

we make love-----

and all

the pent-up power

within her

is unleashed

and I

am swept past

great cities

that came and went

armies that changed maps

and prophets

who threw out the call

until finally

crystalline figures

line the dwelling

and I

am totally in aweof her shape

and strength

I

who won herfrom her father

and brothers

in a fight

that almost

cost my life

I

who had

some part

in the children

who burst forth

from her

mailto:poetslife@gmail.commailto:poetslife@gmail.commailto:poetslife@blogspot.commailto:poetslife@blogspot.commailto:poetslife@blogspot.commailto:poetslife@gmail.com

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I

who never

quite

comprehend her

even realize

that right now

she consumes me

she absorbs

my strength and life

and determine

what direction

they take

I follow her

deep into space

past galaxies

and years

to glimpse

beyond

life and thoughtour destiny

lived now

lived before

lived tomorrow

all as one

for this knowledge ------I follow.

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Of Your Earthen Body

This water gains power

and flows full,

increasing in pressureUntil it runs into

The forest.................., the dam..................

...............the massive dike.

The pressure builds ------------

And this life giving

water

pushes and slams

Seeks some final release

until it can no longer

be contained

inside.

And nature demands

her satisfaction

and pulls the waves

with a full-bodied moonThat y..a..n..k..s the water

through

the vacuum.

It is here life lives

here the soul dances

here evolution rules

Until, there is no quiet.

There is no peace.

There is only the answer,

"Because there is no other!"

To my eternal question, "WHY!"

"AAAAAUUUAAAGHGHGHGHGHG!!!"

I scream in surrender

As the seed-bearing water

overflows the dam,

enters the fertilevalley,

And embeds silently

In the reservoir

Of your earthen body.

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The Day After

I awaken......

.....in vague stirrings....

...of dreams...

Was there......

.......who handled me clean?

In the nights remembrance....

.....sounds of streams....

My strength was dismantled.......

.....beam....by....beam.

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Eamons Poem

Kicking your mother

from inside the liquid universe of the womb...

I feel so crippled and broken when considering

I have so much to teach you

and only the remaining lifetime to do so.

It is hopeless, really, except these two gems

that came down from a long, long line

of men and women who survived centuries of Vikings

whose barbarity was only surpassed

by the neighbor invader who considered genocide

by the rule of law such a jolly good adventure

and stole all the food in the very middle

of the famine of all famines.

Through it all, your ancestors survived

tenaciously creative and green as mosson the back of a stone on the gentle Shannon river

and these two gems skip across that great river

to the Delaware where once, when wondering

of ancestral roots I asked my father,"Dad, what is it to be American?"

"Work!" "What?" I asked.

"Work!" he repeated. "Your grandfather worked.

I worked. You'll work." "That's all?"

"That's all." he answered.

"Then what is it to be Irish?""Hilarity!" He didn't skip a beat again.

"Hilarity!" You gotta make 'em laugh!"

So there it is, Eamon Patrick.

If God takes me before I get to teach you

all you need to know, let these two words suffice:

work and hilarity.

Work and hilarity saved your people

over centuries of warfare, pestilence, invasion,

slavery, defeat, and famine and eventually defeated

the greatest power on earth so I could write you this poem.

Work and hilarity can carry you to the universe

and to other planets and when you find

a particularly hard planet, name it "Work"

and when you find an especially funny planet,

name it "Hilarity."

No matter what the planet or year,

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work and hilarity are in your genes

as am I, and all of my dreams.

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My True Home

Just

this morningI awoke

so in love with you

that inside

a cloud BURST

balloon-like

to lift me high above

the city lights

over highways

and country roads

to an oak cabin

in the woods

where by a fireof apple and peach tree

I laid my head

against your lap

and found theremy true home.

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The Life Cycle

A small boy

is carried

from a car

asleep.

His father,

tenderly,

transports the child

from car to house.

Years later,

when the boy

carried the father

gently to the grave,

and remembered

powerful arms,

carrying

him once,

from somewhere,

to somewhere,the life cycle --

was complete.

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Words Never Die

When they ask you at school,

"And what does your father do?"

Tell them he is a craftsman,

A craftsman of fine words.

A craftsman in the Medieval sense.

A man who takes pride in sculpting

Completed poems out of a vast quarry

Of known but inartistically used language.

And when they say,"But isn't that a rather unproductive

And silly occupation for a full grown man?"

Say to them back:

"No. His words may survive intact,

While your father's money is spent,

And your father's property is divided,

And your father's corporation is absorbed,

And your father's wife grows old and dies.

But words cannot be spent, divided, absorbed or die.

Words never die; only the people who poorly use them."

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Mid-Night Milk Run

Ladies,

Beware

of mentoo willing

to go

for a gallon

of milk at night.

Such time

allows

copious

amounts of time

to hand the bookie

or the dope dealer

or the other womanor any number

of temptations

family money

or the pathto your

mans heart.

So when he returns

with that gallon of milk

always check it twice:

Once to make sure

all the creamhasnt been skimmed

from the top;

And once to make

absolutely sure

both he and the milk

are still pure and white.

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The Last Rose

The last rose of the season

remains uncut on the rose bush

in the unnoticed corner of the yard

by the crumbling yellow pine fence.

I could, it is true, cut it

and bring it to you, as before;

Or simply snip it and place it

in the Waterford vase in the kitchen...

but it is the end of the season.

This ruined Fall could soon be Winter.

The days with no talk could be weeks

Until the weeks are years, and divorce.

No, that rose will remain where it is.When it dies, its stem attaches to roots

That are strong in minerals, dirt, water.

And Spring has so much renewal to give.

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forces women control men's lives by

there are forces

that erupt,

tear apart,spill out,

emerge,

and reerupt,

in vast spaces.....

vast spaces

of no entrance

or exit

vast interior spaces

surrounded

by no exteriors

souls

within bodies

within soulswithin bodies

spaces

that exist

within

larger

than galaxies

unexplored

spaces to be entered

hauntingly,

cautiously,

for fear

of no return

spaces

where life

determines life

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within these places

there are forces

quite unknowable

whose only

manifestation

is a woman's lovethe birth of a child

forces men

can touch

but never

realize

forces women

control

men's lives by

which menas many times ask

will never

know

why

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The Comedians Choice

Two Comedians pummeled an audience with jokes.

They jabbed at their collective neurosis.

Swung wildly at their latent fears.

Then kicked them right in their lifestyles.

After the round was over,

The comedians returned to a corner table

Filled with beautiful women and booze

And sat there nervously trying to calm their anxiety.

Sitting there,

With a choice between the women, the anxiety and the booze,Both men raised their fists to sup their glasses dry,

Ordered doubles, and tapped their